WORDS, WORDS, WORDS!!

There’s a wonderful character in the musical, My Fair Lady, a Cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle. Eliza is chosen by a professor of English to be his protégé. He bets a colleague that he can teach Eliza proper English in a short period of time. After a few weeks, Eliza is exhausted and frustrated with her rigid learning schedule. She sings, “Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words” 

Not my ESL students.

They can’t get enough.

One of the most energizing ways to develop a stronger vocabulary is through the study of roots. It uses our most advanced powers of comprehension and analysis.

Since 75% of the English language is rooted in Latin, it gives Latino students a “heads up”, but it also confuses them when they can’t recognize the different sounds evoked by the same letter combinations. Here’s the way we do it.

MODEL: READ. WRITE. Create a booklet called A Root Alphabet. For each letter of the alphabet, list a root and its meaning. Then list five words that derive from that root.  BIO – (Latin root meaning “Life)

(1) biography – life writing – a writing about someone’s life

(2) biology – life study – the study of life forms

(3) biodegradable – life that can be broken down

(4) antibiotic – against life – the life is dangerous and has to be destroyed

(5) bionic – life bearing – able to have life from non-life

PRACTICE: SPEAK. LISTEN. Without using the dictionary, identify synonyms for the root words and analyze how each word’s meaning reflects the root’s meaning. Words in italics are from our class’s teacher-student interaction. Identify each new root word’s part of speech: biography, biology are both nouns and end in –y.

SPEAK. LISTEN. WRITE. Brainstorm additional words and list them underneath the five sample root words. Brainstormed words…biodiversity, autobiography

ENRICH: RESEARCH. READ. WRITE. As a daily follow up, become a root detective and search for roots in classroom reading assignments and the daily newspaper. List newly discovered root words in A Root Alphabet booklet.

Like a healthy plant, one small root (word) can help your vocabulary garden grow.